


the only time i've ever been to connecticut

by decinq



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: In Between Years, Love Confessions, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:07:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27811237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: Richie feels like the world is going to crack open and swallow him whole with how nervous he is, even though he doesn’t know why. The moment after you’ve gone over the handlebars on your bike but before you hit the ground. He’s scared, and he knows something is about to happen, and he can’t do anything to stop it.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 23
Kudos: 90





	the only time i've ever been to connecticut

**Author's Note:**

> title is from an essay by daniel m. ortberg with the same name, as published on the toast. i pilfered a paragraph from it because i have thought about that essay every single gd day since i read it in 2014 and it also feels very richie to me. thank you to quinn for reading this over.
> 
> i'm on twitter @decinq_
> 
> mentions of stan's death, canon-typical amounts of blood, and addiction.

  
  
  


Eddie is covered in blood and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

  
  


-

Richie is seventeen years old and he’s high in the back of Ben’s mom’s Ford Taurus. 

Eddie, in the passenger seat, is waving his hands around, telling Ben about what he missed in their first period physics class while he was at the dentist that morning. 

Outside, it’s raining. Richie’s astigmatism is getting worse, and his glasses don’t do much to prevent the sharp streaking of light coming from the taillights of the car in front of them. 

-

A comedian walks into a bar in a city he’s only visiting, and sees a man who looks like someone he can’t really remember. There’s no punchline.

-

Richie stares at the peeling _You’ve Got Mail_ poster inside the Aladdin, and wishes, painfully, chest tight, that he could know what Eddie thought the first time he watched it. 

Richie remembers when they saw _When Harry Met Sally_ here. Richie wants to know what Eddie thinks about Nora Ephron and if he’s seen the episode of _New Girl_ with Rob Reiner. 

He wants to look at Eddie and say, _Tell me I’ll never have to be out there again._

-

Richie is bouncing back and forth on his feet, standing in a deli around the corner from 30 Rock that smells like horseradish. He’s thirty-one years old and he thinks his palms are sweatier than they’ve ever been in his life.

The old woman behind the counter yells, “Fifty-seven,” and he wonders if he should buy a sandwich for Lorne Michaels. Does it seem too desperate to bring an extra sandwich to an audition? 

The bell above the door rings, and Richie turns quickly. A short man in a sweater-vest comes into the deli, looking windswept in a way Richie thought only happened in movies. Richie catches his eye, and Richie stops fidgeting. The man smiles, tight lipped, and Richie feels his cheeks get hot. 

The old woman behind the counter yells, “Fifty-eight”,” and Richie looks down at the piece of paper in his hands and steps forward. 

He says, “Hi,” and passes his number over the glass case between them. “I’ll have the Reuben.” 

While he waits, he turns around just as the windswept man looks away. Richie studies the side of his face before he starts to feel like he’s being a creep, so he shifts back towards the counter. He glances towards the other man a few times from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t catch the man’s eye again. 

The old woman behind the counter passes his sandwich to him and yells, “Fifty-nine.” And because Richie has no excuse to linger, he leaves.

-

Richie is seventeen years old and he’s smoking a joint in the alley beside the Aladdin. Ben pulls up at the mouth of the alleyway and honks. 

It’s April, but a stormy front is moving in, according to his mom. It’s only quarter after 5, but it’s dark, like they hadn’t turned the clocks forward only a week ago. The clouds are a deep grey, and the neon lights from the front of the theatre are reflecting off the glass of Ben’s mom’s car. 

Richie opens the door to the back seat and slides into the middle seat. He claps a hand onto the back of each seat. “Thanks for grabbing me, Benny boy.” He turns to Eddie, in the passenger seat, and says. “Hey, Eds.”

  
  


“Sorry we’re late,” Ben says, “Eddie had to talk to Coach after practice.”

“All good,” Richie says. “What’s the plan?”

“We’re going to Blockbuster, Eddie has final veto on the movie choice, _you’re_ paying. My mom’s getting us a pizza and I’ll drive you both home after.” 

-

Richie is in the back of an ambulance, smelling like shit and looking worse, can’t even hold Eddie’s hand because the paramedics are doing something Richie hasn’t really been watching. Richie has his hands pressed between his own thighs, so at least they aren’t shaking. He wants to cry but he’s not sure when he last had a drink of water, and the paramedics have already recognized him, besides. 

The ambulance eventually stops, and the doors open with a noise so loud that Richie jumps. The crash of the stretcher wheels hitting the ground, the crunch and squeak of the paramedic climbing out of the ambulance, the lights and the inertia of it all remind Richie of a car accident. 

Richie walks into the hospital behind the rush of paramedics and nurses and doctors, and stands alone in the middle of what he guesses is the lobby of the emergency room. 

A nurse eventually touches his elbow, and asks, “Has anyone looked over you, sir?”

“I-” Richie says. Stops. Starts. “Is.”

“Your friend is with the doctors. Come with me, we have to make sure you’re okay before we do anything else.”

Richie blinks into lights. Tries to breathe deep but can’t, his back and ribs screaming with it. He needs x-rays. The nurse turns on the tap and pumps soap into his hands and he scrubs and scrubs until his hands are half clean. He pulls his damp wallet from his damp pant pocket and fills out paperwork for himself and then for Eddie. They direct him to a shower, and by the time he comes out, the other Losers are there, and that’s when he starts to cry.

-

Richie is thirty-one years old and he’s about to audition for SNL and he thinks his palms are sweatier than they’ve ever been in his life. He makes a joke about his breath smelling like sauerkraut. He thinks about freckles and a man in a sweater vest and Lorne Michaels laughs at Richie’s Joe Pesci impression, and it goes okay.

-

Richie fires Steve. A month later, he tells his agent Amy that he’s not going to do stand-up anymore. He asks her to ask around about guest spots on sitcom writing teams. He gets a writing credit on an episode of _American Vandal_ and turns down an offer for an hour long special for Netflix. 

He calls Bev and answers emails from Mike and reads articles when Ben texts links to him at one in the morning. He gets a therapist to talk about Stan. He tells her about how much he likes coke even though he hasn’t touched it in six years, and his parents, and how he met Audra in 2011, but he never tells her about Eddie. They talk about the closet and his self esteem and how he wants to delete his Twitter account. He tells her about how much he misses his sister’s kids, since they moved to Colorado, and how he might finally make the move out of Chicago, since Bill lives in LA and he has nothing keeping him anymore. Not that there was ever anything keeping him in Chicago before. He tells her about a dream, his face on a missing poster, his name on a memorial program. 

They talk about how unbearably weird his loneliness has made him.

His therapist asks him what he’s most afraid of, and he says, “What if I look at all this ugly shit inside me and I do all this work and I’m still alone at the end?”

-

Richie is seventeen years old and he’s sitting on the couch in Ben’s living room, crying as the credits start to play on _Four Weddings and a Funeral._

“Fuck you for picking this,” Richie says to Eddie, who squawks. 

“Ben suggested it first!”

“You had veto,” Ben says, and Richie stands from the couch.

“Fuck you both,” he says. He wants to go home. “We better get Eddie home before the clock strikes ten.”

-

  
  


Eddie is covered in blood and barely breathing, and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

Richie’s whole body is screaming. His heart is in his throat. Eddie says, “I fucked your mom.”

-

A man and his five friends walk into a Chinese restaurant.

No - wait.

A man and five of his friends walk into a clubhouse.

A man and five of his friends walk into a Chinese restaurant, an old motel, and clubhouse. 

  
  


-

Richie stands in the doorway to the private hospital room that Ben is currently paying for out of pocket. 

Eddie, across the room, has a tube in his mouth and his eyelids taped shut. He looks pale and very small and, almost, Richie realizes, like a complete stranger. He’s barely alive and Richie barely knows him, but thinks he probably knows more about Eddie than he knows about anything or anyone else in the world. 

-

Richie dreams he’s standing on the stage of Concord Music Hall in front of a full audience. He tries to open his mouth but he forgets what he was going to say. He remembers freckles and tube socks and a windswept man wearing a sweater vest in a deli. Someone in the audience says, “Let’s kill this fucking clown,” and Richie wakes up. 

-

Richie gets to Derry and gets a whole bunch of memories back and the only big epiphany he has is that his dream doesn’t make him happy anymore. He remembers that all he wanted, his whole childhood, was to get away, get somewhere bigger, be a bigger version of himself, one that made people smile and laugh. A version of himself that would matter. 

Here’s the joke: Richie spent his whole childhood being a version of himself that made his friends laugh and smile. He was loved and cherished and he made them happy, and they made him happy and he mattered more to them than he ever would to anyone else. 

He still leaves because he wants to be bigger, and as soon as he goes he forgets all about them, he knows love is real but he doesn’t remember feeling it himself, and he chases his dream and he gets pretty much all of it, everything he ever thought he wanted. And if he ever wanted anything else, he doesn’t remember it. All he ever wanted to was to be looked at enough to become worthwhile, and it happens. People pay money to watch Richie perform, to listen to him talk. He talks and talks and they laugh and he doesn’t ever say anything. He gets so big he hurts people. He knows he’s doing it and he doesn’t stop. If he ever had anyone who loved him enough to challenge him, he couldn’t remember them. 

And they couldn’t remember him either.

And so, they all get to Derry and they all get their memories back, and he remembers them, and they remember him. He’s standing in the doorway of a hospital room, showered, wearing a hospital gown and a pair of socks they gave him to change into, and they all turn to look at him. 

He’s spent so much with people looking at him, but, he realizes, no one ever really sees him. Not since he was seventeen years old, thirteen years old, five years old. They remember him and they see and they love him even though he does so much harm. 

But here’s the punchline: he almost wishes they didn’t. 

-

He makes a joke about his breath smelling like sauerkraut. He thinks about freckles and a man in a sweater vest and Lorne Michaels laughs at Richie’s Joe Pesci impression, and he thinks it goes okay. 

When he gets the offer, something happens deep in Richie’s heart, and he feels impossibly lonely, and he doesn’t even really remember saying no, just remembers seeing red. 

-

Richie is seventeen years old and he’s high in the back of Ben’s mom’s Ford Taurus. 

Eddie, in the passenger seat, is waving his hands around, telling Ben about what he missed in their first period physics class while he was at the dentist that morning. Eddie, who had only taken one hit from Richie’s joint before getting into Ben’s car after the movie, is a bit more animated than usual. Richie smiles to himself, listening to Eddie talk without really paying attention, listening to the rain on the windshield. 

Richie’s astigmatism is getting worse, and his glasses don’t do much to prevent the sharp streaking of light coming from the taillights of the car in front of them. Reflecting off the wet hot-top, the red lights give everything a muted, fuzzy glow. 

Suddenly, the car in front of them stops. Ben slams the breaks. The car screeches. 

-

Richie types, _I’m moving to LA to make a move on Bill’s wife_

Bill says, _Good fkn luck_

Richie says, _Seriously tho. Just sold my condo in chi._

Bev sends a bunch of emojis that Richie doesn't understand. Mike offers to help him pack up his place. Ben offers up the name of the last moving company he used. 

Eddie doesn’t say anything. 

-

“None of you ever fucking talk about it.”

“Well,” Eddie sighs. “It makes me sad.”

-

An idiot walks into a bar. The bartender says, “Hey, we have a drink named after you here!”

The idiot says, “You have a drink named Richie?”

-

Richie is forty years old and he wakes up on his couch with a dry mouth and the TV playing whatever came on AMC after he fell asleep to _Sleepless in Seattle_. He blinks heavily and eventually sits up. Outside, it’s dark, and raining. Inside, his neck hurts. He doesn’t know where his phone is. On the TV, Gareth has a heart attack.

Even in the happy movies, Richie thinks. Even in romantic ones, even if there’s not any blood. The gay people still die at the end. 

-

Richie watches as Eddie slurps peach slices into his mouth, straight from the little cup they came in, no cutlery. It’s kind of gross. Things have been weird between them but Richie isn't sure why. He hasn’t said anything. He hasn’t done anything. Eddie’s been awake for three full days and still everything between them feels so heavy, so bogged down. Richie feels claustrophobic sitting in Eddie’s hospital room, but he can’t bring himself to leave.

-

The thing is, Richie really thought they would have forever to figure it out. 

-

Ben slams the breaks. The car screeches. 

Richie slams forward, and his face meets the back of the headrest, and he feels something in his nose crunch. As fast as he flung forward, he slumps back. In the space between one second and the next, Richie’s nose starts to bleed. 

“Jesus,” Eddie says, hands braced against the dash. 

“Is everyone okay?” Ben asks. 

Richie groans. The car ahead of them pulls forward, then turns left at the next intersection. 

“Oh, Christ,” Eddie says, turning around in his seat. Then, ”Ben, pull over.”

-

“What year did your mom die?” Richie asks.

-

Richie gets x-rays done on his ribs and his hip and his spine. He knows there’s a joke in there somewhere. But then the doctor tells him he has a cracked rib. He offers Richie something for the pain, and Richie swallows hard and says, “I’m six years clean,” and as a whole, the entire experience isn’t very funny. 

-

Eddie says, “Rich, I-” but then he stops. 

He looks pale and very small but his eyes are glowing. He’s really very handsome, Richie thinks, even with dissolving stitches in his cheek. Even under the fluorescent hospital lights. 

Richie looks Eddie dead in the eye. His throat feels tight. His skin feels itchy. Anaphylaxis. 

“I’m not-” Eddie tries again. Huffs when the words don’t come. Richie finishes the sentence in his head a hundred times. I’m not - I’m not who you think I am. I’m not a fan of your comedy. I’m not gay. I’m not happy. I’m not going to change anything. I’m not interested.

“I think,” Richie says. Richie finishes the sentence in his head a hundred times. I think I saw you once. I think you should run away with me. I think I thought about you every single day of my life. I think you’re funnier than me. I think you’re it for me. I think I’m going to quit comedy. I think I could be in love with you. I think there’s a joke in here somewhere. “I think you should eat the rest of your dinner.” 

He gestures towards the plastic cup of peaches on Eddie’s dinner tray, set down on the table beside his hospital bed. 

So Richie watches as Eddie slurps peach slices into his mouth, straight from the little cup they came in, no cutlery. It’s kind of gross. 

Eddie’s been awake for three full days and still everything between them feels so heavy, so bogged down. Richie feels claustrophobic sitting in Eddie’s hospital room, but he can’t bring himself to leave. 

Eddie finishes his peach slices.

“I need to call my wife,” he says, eventually, and Richie nods.

  
  
  


-

He blinks heavily and eventually sits up. Outside, it’s dark, and raining. Inside, his neck hurts. He doesn’t know where his phone is. On the TV, Gareth has a heart attack.

He digs around in his couch cushions, finds his phone. 

There’s a text from Eddie, nearly two hours old. It says, _you know, i think i saw you in a bar once. in 2013._

Richie doesn’t know what that means. It’s too late to respond anyway. Nearing midnight in California and the witching hour in New York. He imagines Eddie, asleep in his bed. Imagines a beige bedroom with navy sheets and maybe a walk-in closet. 

Richie brushes his teeth and drinks a glass of water and wishes he knew what to say. 

-

“Well,” Richie says. “I can’t really sleep at night anymore. And, I know, can anyone?”

-

Ben pulls over and Richie stumbles out of the car.

Eddie is on him in the blink of an eye, swatting at Richie’s hands and pushing him to sit on the curb. He grabs the hem of his own t-shirt and lifts it to hold it to Richie’s nose. Tries to tilt Richie’s head back. Richie coughs and he thinks his mouth is full of blood. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks. Richie’s fine. His nose is bleeding all over Eddie’s shirt. His mom will be mad. 

“I’m fine,” Richie mumbles, then leans around Eddie’s legs, away from his hands, and spits onto the street behind him. Eddie’s hair is sticking to his forehead, soaked from the rain.

  
  


-

Eddie says, “Rich, I’m not-”

Richie says, “I think-”

Eddie says, “I need to call my wife.”

Richie says, “Do you need me to stay for that?”

Eddie says, “Fuck, no.”

  
  


-

Richie says, “You know I’m an addict, right?”

Eddie is dumping bottles of pills into the toilet in Richie’s room at the Townhouse. There’s a pack of, bizarrely, Midol sitting on the side of the vanity to Eddie’s left. 

“And you’re not supposed to flush pills down the toilet,” he says. “You can just drop them off at the pharmacy.”

“I know,” Eddie says. “I can’t go back there and I don’t want to look at them anymore.”

“I would have taken them,” Richie says, pushing off the door frame to stand up straight

“Yeah, I can’t ask you to do that.” Eddie says.

“Why not?” Richie asks. 

“‘Cause I know you’re an addict. I remember reading about when you went to rehab.”

Richie doesn’t know what to do with his hands. “Oh,” he says. Then, “You ready to go, once you’re done?”

Eddie catches Richie's eye in the mirror, and smiles. “Yeah. Five minutes?”

-

Give a man a duck and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to duck and he’ll never walk into a bar.

-

  
  


“I know he’s dead, Richie. I have to live with that too.”

“None of you ever fucking talk about it.”

“Well,” Eddie sighs. “It makes me sad.”

-

He’s forty and he’s sitting in his therapist's office and she asks, “Do you think it makes you more interesting?”

Richie scoffs. “Are you asking if I like the fact that I hate myself?”

-

  
  


“I’m fine,” Richie mumbles, then leans around Eddie’s legs, away from his hands, and spits his own blood onto the street behind him. When he leans back and looks up at Eddie, Eddie’s hair is sticking to his forehead, soaked from the rain.

“You wanna walk the rest of the way?”

“It’s raining,” Richie says.

“It’s only a block to my place. Come inside and we can clean you up.”

“What about your mom?”

“We’ll be quiet,” Eddie says.

Richie rolls his eyes and stands from the sidewalk. “I’ll come over for a few minutes, but Ben’s driving us to the door.”

-

Richie opens the door and Eddie is standing on his doorstep, a single carry-on suitcase in his left hand. He blinks up at Richie with huge eyes, and instead of hello, Richie says, “Are you wearing a fucking sweater vest?” 

-

  
  


“So what’s wrong with how you feel now?”

-

Ben pulls up outside Eddie’s house, and Richie gives him a noogie before getting out of Ben’s mom’s car with a quick, “Goodnight.”

He follows Eddie up the front porch. His mom is asleep in front of the TV, and Eddie ushers Richie up the stairs quietly. They’ve done it before. Richie takes his shoes off and carries them upstairs in one hand. 

They get into Eddie’s room, and he shuts the door softly. 

“Let me get you a towel, or something,” Eddie says, and Richie sits on the edge of Eddie’s twin sized bed. 

Eddie disappears into the bathroom and Richie yawns and rubs at his eyes under his glasses.

When Eddie comes back in, he asks, “Does it hurt?”

He hands Richie a wet washcloth, and Richie wipes gingerly at his nose. “Smarts,” he says. Eddie sits beside him on the edge of the bed, and their legs brush together when the mattress dips, tipping them towards each other. As if the gravitational pull of Richie’s wanting wasn’t enough. 

“Do you want an ice pack?” 

Richie shakes his head. “I can ice it when I get home.” 

Eddie takes the washcloth from Richie’s hands. “You’re missing like. So much of it.” He gently brings the cloth to Richie’s face. Wipes his skin clean slowly. His other hand is holding the side of Richie’s face, his fingers around the shell of Richie’s ear. 

“Sorry I got blood on your shirt,” Richie says, and his voice cracks a bit. Eddie huffs a bit, and the soft inhale and exhale of his breath ghosts across Richie’s skin. It’s barely there. He breathes so slowly.

“I’m the one who tried to use it as a tissue. It’s hardly your fault.” 

Richie closes his eyes, because he can’t keep looking at Eddie without kissing him. He would do anything to know how it feels. For Eddie to be game. 

Eddie is covered in blood and breathing softly, and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

Richie’s heart is in his throat. His nose hurts. His whole body is screaming. He opens his eyes.

-

“Do you think it makes you more interesting?”

Richie scoffs. “Are you asking if I like the fact that I hate myself?”

She raises an eyebrow.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know how to be a different way. If I did, I would be doing it already.” He looks down at his hands. “I do envy the people who can ask for help.”

“Is that not why you’re here, though? Because you’re asking for help?”

“Well, sure, but.” He stops. Thinks about Eddie, in New York, doing whatever he is wont to do. “It’s not the same as asking someone I love for help.”

-

A man and five of his friends walk into a haunted house. 

A man and five of his friends walk into a trap. 

-

Richie opens the door and Eddie is standing on his doorstep, a single carry-on suitcase in his left hand. He blinks up at Richie with huge eyes, and instead of hello, Richie says, “Are you wearing a fucking sweater vest?” 

“You are so fucking rude, I swear to fucking God.”

Richie smiles. “Sorry. Hello, Eddie.” He says it in a Voice, oddly formal. Then, as himself, he says, “What are you doing here? Would you like to come in?” He steps back and Eddie steps through the front door and into Richie’s life in a very tangible way. 

“Do you have any food? I’m starving.”

“Uh,” Richie says. Eddie leaves his bag in the foyer and walks towards the back of the house. Richie ate leftover udon that he didn’t even bother heating up for dinner. “I have uh- probably a lasagna in the freezer. Bananas?”

Eddie asks, “May I please have a banana?”

It’s so stiff that Richie doesn’t know what to say. Points to the small fruit bowl on his kitchen counter. “So, uh, not that I’m not happy to see you, but what’s happening right now?”

Eddie takes a giant bite and grimaces. “You didn’t answer my text.” He says it around a mouthful of banana. There’s a joke in all this, but Richie doesn’t make it. Doesn’t really want to. 

“So you came to my house? In California?” 

Eddie shrugs. 

“Are you okay?” Eddie asks. Richie’s fine. His head hurts. He’s surprised. 

“I’m fine,” Richie says. “Are you?”

He shrugs again, and Richie wonders when he started doing that. He’s only ever known Eddie to be sure of himself, steadfast, rooted into the earth with his stubbornness and his kindness and his twisted sense of humour. 

“I got a divorce,” he says, and Richie blinks at him. Finally sits in a bar stool to stare at Eddie on the other side of the counter.

“Congrats?” Richie says. “Is that what I’m supposed to say?”

“Fuck if I know,” Eddie smiles. “But thank you. I agree.”

“Is that why you’re here?”

Eddie shakes his head. “It’s-” He inhales deeply, then gives a heavy exhale. “Stan’s birthday would be tomorrow.” 

“It’s still his birthday even if he’s not here for it.”

“Yes,” Eddie says. “And I was sitting at my desk and I thought, you know, I wish I could be with him for that. But I can’t. And if I can’t be with him, at least I could be with you, maybe Bill, if he wants to hang out.”

“Oh,” Richie says, stupid. 

-

A boy walks in a forest on the edge of his small town.

A boy walks through a forest and finds a creek. 

A boy and three of his friends build a dam in the creek. 

A boy and six of his friends walk into a haunted house.

A boy walks out of his small town all alone and gets lost for 23 years. 

A man and only five of his friends walk into a Chinese restaurant.

  
  
  
  
  


-

“I know he’s dead, Richie. I have to live with that too.”

“None of you ever fucking talk about it.”

“Well,” Eddie sighs. “It makes me sad.”

-

  
  


“So what’s wrong with how you feel now?”

“Well,” Richie says. “I can’t really sleep at night anymore. And, I know, can anyone? But I wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling and I think, _Christ, I’m not doing it yet_ . _I’m still not doing it._ ”

“Doing what?”

“That’s the thing,” Richie says. “I stare at the ceiling and I ask myself the same question, it’s just like, _the thing I’m supposed to be doing, the special thing, I’m not special and I’ll die if I don’t do it_ . And I’ll think _well what’s the special thing?_ But then I refuse to elaborate.”

  
  


-

  
  


Eddie is covered in blood and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

-

A man walks into a Chinese food restaurant and thinks he might finally find his way.

He doesn’t. Not right away. 

  
  


-

“If he was here, what would you say to him?”

Richie looks at the side of Eddie’s face, the way he’s propped up at the end of Richie’s couch, his bent elbow along the back. He shrugs.

“He’s dead.” Richie says. He hasn’t said a word to Stan since he was fifteen years old. He wouldn’t know what to say. He’s done this exercise in therapy. It doesn’t make him feel any better to imagine, but he’ll never have the chance. 

“I know he’s dead, Richie. I have to live with that too.”

“None of you ever fucking talk about it.”

“Well,” Eddie sighs. “It makes me sad.”

Richie looks away, catches their warped reflection in the dead-dark of the TV. 

“Sorry.” Richie says. “I don’t- I guess I would want him to be proud of me. But I don’t know that he actually would be.”

  
  


-  
  
  
  


Eddie is covered in blood and barely breathing, and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

Richie’s whole body is screaming. His heart is in his throat. Eddie says, “I fucked your mom.”

-

  
  


Eddie is covered in blood and breathing softly, and he says, “Richie, I gotta tell you something-”

Richie’s whole body is screaming. His heart is in his throat. 

“Sure, Eds. Hit me.”

“I-” He stops. “My mom.” He huffs. 

“Just tell me,” Richie says. Eddie is usually so sure of himself, steadfast, rooted into the earth with his stubbornness and his kindness and his twisted sense of humour. Richie feels like the world is going to crack open and swallow him whole with how nervous he is, even though he doesn’t know why. The moment after you’ve gone over the handlebars on your bike but before you hit the ground. He’s scared, and he knows something is about to happen, and he can’t do anything to stop it.

“We’re moving,” Eddie whispers. 

Richie’s thigh presses into Eddie’s harder than it ever has before, but he doesn’t move. “Where?”

“New Haven,” Eddie says. 

“When?” Richie asks. 

“End of the school year,” Eddie says.

The thing is, Richie really thought they would have forever to figure it out. 

Richie doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what to do with his hands. He looks at Eddie, who is so cute and so brave and absolutely Richie’s favourite person on the planet, and Richie wants to cry. 

“I’m going to be lost without you,” he says.

Eddie snorts a laugh, like it surprises him. “You’re lost with me, dumbass.”

-

“Sorry.” Richie says. “I don’t- I guess I would want him to be proud of me. But I don’t know that he actually would be.”

“Of course he would be,” Eddie says. 

“I’m an asshole,” Richie says. 

“You want to know a secret I learned?”

Richie looks at Eddie, who is so handsome and so brave and came to California to sit on Richie’s couch and talk about their dead friend. He has to close his eyes, then, because he can’t keep looking at Eddie without kissing him. He would do anything to know how it feels. For Eddie to be game. 

“Sure, Eds. Hit me.”

-

  
  
  
  


“So what’s wrong with how you feel now?”

“Well,” Richie says. “I can’t really sleep at night anymore. And, I know, can anyone? But I wake up in the middle of the night and stare at the ceiling and I think, _Christ, I’m not doing it yet_ . _I’m still not doing it._ ”

“Doing what?”

“That’s the thing,” Richie says. “I stare at the ceiling and I ask myself the same question, it’s just like, _the thing I’m supposed to be doing, the special thing, I’m not special and I’ll die if I don’t do it_ . And I’ll think _well what’s the special thing?_ But then I refuse to elaborate.”

“Hmm,” Eddie hums, and Richie wants to squeeze him so tight he pops. 

“I think I’ve been lost without you, man.”

“You’re lost with me,” Eddie says.

“What year did your mom die?” Richie asks.

“Why?”

-

  
  


A comedian walks into a bar in a city he’s only visiting, and sees a man who looks like someone he can’t really remember. 

Of course there’s a punchline. But you have to wait for it. 

-

“Sure, Eds. Hit me.”

“Everyone on earth is an asshole.” It startles a laugh out of Richie, and he opens his eyes again. Eddie is smiling, but only barely, the barest upturn at the corner of his mouth. 

“That’s your wisdom?”

“Not all of it. I just - you know, Bev has been talking to Stan’s wife a bunch. Patty.”

“Better her than anyone else. Other than maybe Ben.”

Eddie nods. “Well, I’ve been thinking about how much of a dickhead he was. And he still found her and they made a life, even though he was so. God. He pissed me off sometimes. But I liked that about him. And he was our friend. And we were his.”

Richie bites the inside of his cheek. “He was the best.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “He was. But he was an asshole, too.”

Richie wipes at his eyes under his glasses. He’s so sad. But he feels so much better talking about it. Sitting with Eddie about it. He would sit and talk about anything if it meant Eddie would sit and talk about anything with him, too. 

“But that’s the secret. Richie. Everyone on earth is an asshole, but you know what else? Everyone is capable of building a life, and of being a friend. And sometimes, yeah you act like a real dickhead. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t capable of loving, or of being loved. And Stan would know that. He would see that. Of course he would love you.”

“Eddie,” Richie says. His throat feels like it’s going to close over. Anaphylaxis. The breaking of a dam. A string tethering him to the map of his life being re-tied for the first time since he was seventeen years old. 

Just like the clocks go forward in the spring, they eventually get turned back. He presses his fingers into his eyes until he sees white, then red. Taillights on wet hot-top. 

-

“What year did your mom die?” Richie asks.

“Why?”

“Was it 2013?”

Eddie’s eyebrows furrow. “How’d you know that?”

Richie shifts on the couch, presses his knee into Eddie’s thigh. “I toured that spring. Nothing huge, but around New England, then down the coast a bit.”

“Okay?”

“I think you know this one,” Richie says. “A man walks into a bar-”

“Is this some kind of joke about you fucking my mother, because, seriously-”

-

A comedian walks into a bar in a city he’s only visiting, and sees a man who looks like someone he can’t really remember.

When the comedian catches the man’s eye, they both smile.

-

“Is this some kind of joke about you fucking my mother, because, seriously-”

“No,” Richie says. Shakes his head. “Eddie, just listen. I love you, but you gotta listen. Did she die in April of 2013?”

“Yeah?”

Richie nods. “That tour-”

“You love me?” Eddie’s smiling, so Richie smiles too.

“Yeah, but listen. That tour-” He takes Eddie’s hand and holds it in his lap. “That was the only time I’ve ever been to Connecticut.”

  
  



End file.
